A Season For Caring and a Time For Sharing

Kay is such an amazing little girl. Back in the summer she thought of this grand idea to have a charity lemonade stand. She wanted to donate the proceeds to the Phoenix Children's Hospital. She tought of this all on her own. Keep in mind this was in the middle of the blistering summer way before Christmas too, so I told her that sometime in the fall we could do that. I have no idea what prompted her to do this. Maybe its because we drive right past the Children's hospital all the time on the way to grandmas house? Almost every time we drive by, I tell her about it. How sad it is to think that the big huge hospital is filled with sick children who are away from their families, etc. I think she may have just realized how lucky she is....

Fast forward to fall. We planned to do a multi family garage sale with some friends who live down the street. They also have girls, ages 8 and 3. Kay is good friend with the older girl and thought she might want to do the charity lemonade sale with her. We decided it would be best to have the girls set up AT the garage sale because we would already have the crowds coming in. Her mom and I planned a play date a few weeks in advance so the girls could make and decorate a sign for their lemonade table. And this is what they came up with:

The garage sale was not as successful as we planned (the weather), but they did managed to raise $12.50 that dreary day!! But the girls did an amazing (and crazy!) job of trying to get people to donate, while also having a blast together.

A few weeks had gone by, and I asked my friend (the little girls mom) if she could contact them and find out how and when we could bring the kids down to donate the money that they raised. Well turns out the best way to do that is to go on their website where they have wish lists that the kids posts, and take the girls and the money shopping for the kids! Perfect!

But this Sunday morning, Kay thought that wasn't enough. All the girls even took money out of their allowance, but it still left them with under 20 dollars.

So Kay had another bright idea to help raise more money. Again, all on her own she thought of all this.

The grand idea? Go door to door to our neighbors with signs that her and L had made, along with a money box to see if any of them would contribute to the Phoenix Children's Hospital Present Fund and if you did donate, you got to receive one of the signs/pictures that Kay and L had made. Pretty clever I must say!

At first, although cute, I thought this was kinda crazy. On a sunday morning 3 wild kids and a crazy lady knocking on my door?! But then I realized these are our neighbor's, so they know us ad know that we aren't some crazy weird pan handlers.

And well it was a huge success! Turns out people ARE good. Better than good, amazing. A few people dropped 20's in there, and everyone gave at least $5.00!

So the girls came home with $68.00 just from the people on our street. Combine that with the $12.50 they already have, and they now have $80.50 for the kids!!!!!!!!!!!!

This makes me such a proud momma!!! All of this makes me realize, that even though my kids are spoiled rotten, that they still have good hearts, and are becoming caring, giving, thoughtful little human beings. What more could a mother ask for? And how good my little Kay Kay really is. And L ....well she is learning. Yes she did say "now give us some money" when people would answer the door, but we're working on her...and she is learning. She's on my watch now ; )

Stay tuned for the ending of this story...when we all go to The Phoenix Children's Hospital to help brighten some little peoples Holidays.